


In The Ashes

by CloudDreamer



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Arson, Lucky Sevens - Freeform, Malone - Freeform, Mechs Typical Bastardry Taken Seriously, Off screen, POV Outsider, Refugees, So Ashes Kinda Did A Genocide, pet death, smoke inhalation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudDreamer/pseuds/CloudDreamer
Summary: Malone was a large planet.And not everyone caught in the flame died.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	In The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> If you think I wrote this because someone on tumblr said I wrote good Mechs Bastardry content, then you’d be absolutely right. :D

She sits at the edge of the triage, in the makeshift refugee camp, her knees curled to her chest, and the strong scent of alcohol isn’t enough to cover up the charred flesh. New people rush in every couple of minutes, carried by exhausted emergency response workers. She recognizes the one who saved her. 

No, she realizes eventually. They’re not from here. Maybe it’s their lighter skin, several shades wrong for even the palest Malone native, their bright teal hair done in a style that’s several decades out of date at best, or their dark expression that does it, but she’s sure. The stranger who wears the uniform of the rescue team wrong, just a few sizes too big for someone so slight yet unnaturally strong, isn’t coughing like the rest of the workers. 

They’re exhausted, true, but it’s a different sort of exhaustion than the fresh burn out of their “colleagues.” This is bone deep. As they deposit their bloodied burden closest to the doctors, they catch her gaze. 

The stranger only has one eye, the other is covered by a black patch, but they smile knowingly at her, their sharp teeth like knives. She swallows. Absolute terror strikes her, stronger than when she’d heard the radio crackle to life, warning her that the sole survivor of a gang conflict was attempting arson on a never seen before scale, everyone still alive should attempt to evacuate off planet. That all the martial forces remaining were attempting to stop them, but the odds aren’t in Malone’s favor, so go, you idiots, just go— oh, Gods of sands and stones, they’re here, please— 

Even that had felt distant. She’d gotten to her feet, pulled her shoes on, and put Jody on a leash. They’d walked, and then they’d ran as they’d felt the heat approach, stronger than even the worst days beneath Malone’s twin subs, young woman and her dog alike. Despite the fear, her motions had felt robotic. 

Her mind was distant from her body. She was elsewhere when she lost her grip on Jody’s leash as he panicked. She didn’t turn back to see the building, already weakened from shoddy construction, collapse on his tiny body. She just kept running.

The fear here, seeing them, doesn’t let her mind escape. It traps her in the moment, and every part of her body is hyperactive. She knows her heart is pounding because she can hear it in her ears, deafening. 

She’s sure the stranger can hear it. They saved her, picking her up when she’d fallen, but now in this light, she sees just how slender they are. There’s so much hunger behind that eye, the sort of desperate hunger she’s seen on the streets, begging for please, just a bit of coin, ma’am, and now it’s trained on her, she can only wonder if she’ll be the next meal. 

She stands, adrenaline overriding the scream of the bruises and aches. 

But she’s been run ragged, fleeing from the flames that consumed everything she’d built. Her friends, her family— she didn’t even know if they were alive. And even if they were, what then? This ship would reach capacity soon, and they’d lift off before the wall of flames sealed them in. It’s not just a throat sore from smoke inhalation that keeps her from screaming as the stranger puts one finger to their lips. 

All the strength from the moment flees her, and she’s more exhausted than when she began. She slides back into her seat, and the stranger leans down to focus on the person they just saved. 

“Somethin’ wrong?” the man next to her asks. He’s older, and his words are wheezed out. There’s a tear in his shirt from where some rubble must’ve caught him. 

“Just... thought I saw something.” 

She shakes her head. The certainty that the stranger who’d saved her life would take it in an instant, if she proved an inconvenience, is gone with the adrenaline. 

“Damn this smoke, huh?” 

He coughs a bit, and she nods. That’s it. The smoke making her see things.


End file.
